Romance

This paper proposes Romance as an important key term for Environmental Humanities in the 19th Century. The task for the environmental humanities considering Romance is twofold: first, we need to consider the importance of... [ view full abstract ]

This paper proposes Romance as an important key term for Environmental Humanities in the 19^th Century. The task for the environmental humanities considering Romance is twofold: first, we need to consider the importance of materiality, ecology and environmental change as central to the structure of the American Romance novel. As a field, we have privileged “naturalism” (and to some degree “realism”) as genres more interested in the environment or materiality. Second, after theorizing how the Romance tethers human histories with environmental ones, we can interrogate the romantic structures of our current environmental theories, in particular theories surrounding the Anthropocene.  

My dissertation, “Savage Arcadia: The American Romance in the Anthropocene,” traces episodes of American Romance novel alongside histories of environmental change. The interweaving of human histories and environmental ones are central to understanding the project of the novel and narratives of national development, and as such, I argue theories of the Anthropocene replicate the form of the Romance novel. In turn, by historicizing the literary form of the Anthropocene, “Savage Arcadia” interrogates the limits and possibilities surrounding current ecological conversations. Romance--and the problem of genre--in the age of climate change instills a return to thinking through literary forms, history and existence.